I'm on the fence regarding Dune HD Max. Brilliant on paper, but lack of places to demo, coupled with not so glowing reviews here (although some reviews I read have been good) means I'll wait for word of mouth publicity before considering one. Oppo did very well despite lack of demo places, through word of mouth publicity. I'm not aware of any forum member who owns this product.

I have had the dune HD Max some months now and overall i am very pleased with it. Recently bought a 2TB sata hard drive for it, but it plays external hard drives and USB sticks and plays just about every file i've thrown at it. It's now connected to the internet and with recent updates (staight onto the player connected to the internet) it now has facebook, twitter, youtube and others. The only problem i have with it is that there is an audio drop out now and then when it plays hi-def audio from blu-rays (DTS HD and DOLBY TRU-HD) and is still currently being disscussed on other forums. I was hoping it would be rectified on some new firmware updates, but as yet it hasn't happened. The picture quality is very good and not that far from my Denon blu-ray which cost me five times as much. Hope this helps.

It's intresting to see that what hi fi only gave this product only 2 stars while the rest of the reviewers for other magazines across the world gave it "Best Buy" and "product of the year" and more (just look on their web site for the awards).

One of the main reasons i got the HD Max was that it can pass 5:1 surround sound through my old AV amp (there is no HDMI sockets on the amp). I have other media players but won't pass surround sound unless you use phono sockets, but is standard video quality (cuts HDMI out). The HD Max has audio out in 'HDMI' and 'digital out' or 'analogue 7:1' pass through.

I use mine with coax 'digital out' into my AV amp and sounds great, i have not used the 'analogue out' sockets because my Denon BD player is using them in the AV amp. But it could only sound better if i used them.

I use mine with coax 'digital out' into my AV amp and sounds great, i have not used the 'analogue out' sockets because my Denon BD player is using them in the AV amp. But it could only sound better if i used them.

Hi Super ,

If you compare the DUNE to your DENON - Which is better in terms of sound , picture , fucntions ?

The Denon is the DVD3800BD model and cost me £1600 at that time, built like a tank and the disc transport is very smmoth and quiet. The Dune was at a special price on a 1 day only and cost me £327 so obviously it can't match the Denon on certain things, but for that price it is not shamed. Bear in mind that the Dune is a very good media player with a HDD dock and is a very good blu-ray player in sound and vision, i think it's one of the best media players out there.

Hi Isac, when i first got the hd max it was limited on what it got on the internet, radio and one or two other things. When you connect to the internet it has a direct link to it's own site so any firmware upgrade can be done direct to the player. There have been numerous updates since i've had the player and now i can get youtube, facebook, twitter and local weather. There is a dedicated site for Dune owners where people ask a lot of questions and help each other out (me included) and they know a lot more than i do about the products. Hope this helps.